Helping your little worrywart
Filed Under Tips & Tricks | April 29, 2008
Last month Sharon Selby, a local child counselor, and the brains behind Phonics Wizard, talked about anxiety in children and its causes. This month she’s following up with her top tips for supporting children with anxiety:
- When possible, minimize or remove stressors such as marital strife, conversations about finances and other potentially heated topics as well as hectic schedules from your child’s life.
- Create as much predictability and routine as possible. Meal times, snacks, and bedtime should all be routine-based. Stress is easier to manage with sufficient sleep and food. Implement a calendar that your child can refer to (use pictures if your child is not yet reading) and go over the calendar on a daily basis.
- Implement a time-management plan. Allow enough time to get to school, activities, and appointments without the stress of rushing.
- Some children may experience “melt-downs” when they are anxious and it’s important to Support them and tell them that you understand that they don’t want to do something, Empathize with them by validating their feelings, and then put the limit in place by stating the Truth which is that they still have to do what was asked of them. This is called S.E.T. communication. It is very important not to raise your voice as this will further increase an anxious or sensitive child’s anxiety and they will feel paralyzed.
- Teach progressive relaxation by having your child to take three deep breaths or have them practice blowing bubbles, which creates the same effect. Encourage your child to tense their muscles like a robot and then relax and go floppy like a rag doll. These exercises create endorphins in the body which combat the cortisol created by the stress.
- Do physical exercise together, it creates endorphins and gives you time for a one on one connection.
- Challenge your child’s negative thinking by encouraging them to replace an unhelpful thought with a helpful or positive thought. For example if you’re going on an exciting trip, have them rate the chances out of 10 of their plane crashing (if that’s their fear) vs. their excitement about the trip overall. The positive thought will hopefully have a higher score, giving concrete validation for them to focus on the positive thought.
- Help your child to face a fear in small, incremental steps and with lots of positive reinforcement.
- Model appropriate ways to handle stressful situations. Since anxiety has a strong tendency to be genetic, be mindful of how you manage your own anxiety. Be careful not to over reassure which can result in a child feeling more insecure. Believe in your child’s strength.
Sharon Selby, B.Ed., M.A., is a local child counsellor. She is the author of The Phonics Wizard Reading Series: a learn-to-read program for parents to teach their own children early literacy skills for ages 2-7.
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